Unfortunately, Ferra’s plans were not to be. The next morning, they crumbled to dust to the tune of someone frantically knocking on his door several hours before the sun was set to rise.
“Ferra, get up and grab your adventuring gear! Meet us downstairs in fifteen! We’re being called in for an emergency, the stellar alignment is in forty five and we can’t miss it!”
Stirred to action by the alarm in the voice, Ferra jolted awake, rolled out of bed, and cracked his skull against the carpeted floor when his still asleep legs failed to respond.
A few moments of cursing, a small flash of the divine, and the snoozer was blearily glaring at the door from a standing position while holding a palm to his forehead. “I’m up, I’m up!”
The banging stopped, and quick footsteps pattered away down the hall. Still nursing his poor forehead, Ferra turned to the task of quickly throwing all his gear together and getting dressed. Most of it had never been unpacked, which made things easy, and shortly after he was standing down by the bar, damnably awake and ready to go.
Avalanche and Mirana were already waiting, and moments behind Ferra, Mel and Grek followed. Their captain spoke quickly and in clipped tones, his voice losing the crisp exactness Ferra had grown accustomed to.
“There’s been an infernal breach in the mines of a neighboring island. No imperial strike teams are currently available, so we’re getting drafted alongside the two other strongest adventuring groups in the area. Star based transport is being readied at the island center, where the resonances are most favorable. We need to go right now, to give them the most time possible to quantify us for finalizing the ritual structure.”
The team rushed out at Grek’s signal, sprinting, or in Avalanche’s case floating, at full speed. The wind rushing past his face, the sun yet to rise in the sky. Were it not for the seriousness on the orc’s face, Ferra would be inclined to believe it was all a particularly vivid dream.
Before too long, and thankfully before he began gasping for breath, they reached the edge of town. Avalanche couldn’t possibly carry them all without growing tired, and Grek could only safely alter gravity in the vertical direction. Messing with momentum and gravity did give him a fair amount of individual mobility, but it wasn’t something the whole team could safely use.
Luckily, Mirana, as part of her interest in the void, (something Ferra was trying not to worry too much about,) had also begun learning some of the easier tricks of shadow magic, something that synergized relatively well with fae and witching magics.
In this case, the spell she was using was essentially a much less effective version of Nine’s preferred form of mobility. The world grew muted as she finished her chant, as if all of Ferra’s senses were hidden behind a veil. He took an experimental step, almost falling over when he covered five full strides with that single small step.
After several minutes of practice in this gray world, taking care not to lose sight of the others, Grek signaled it was time to go, and to follow him; hand code was one of the many things Ferra was having to learn, now that he was on a proper adventuring team. Speech behind the veil was highly unadvised. It tended to draw… things.
Aside from the constant danger of stepping two far and landing inside a tree, under the effects of Mirana’s spell they quickly traversed the island. Within perhaps another ten minutes, they came in sight of the artificial hill that marked the center of the island. Moments later the sounds of insects chirping and the gust of a soft breeze made themselves known as she pulled the team fully back over the veil and into the physical world.
Star magic was both blind mysticism and rigid calculation, and the resonances that came from being at the center of a given island opened up a number of options for them, apparently. Ferra understood star magic significantly less than he did law, which translated to him knowing more about the economics of star based transport than he did the underlying mechanics.
Atop the hill were hundreds of block marble pillars, some mounted on tracks and others rooted in place. The entire area was positively drowning in glowing white chalk inscriptions, winding across the floor, up pillars, and more. At certain parts there were numbers written, others mathematical formulas, and still others arcane symbols that were entirely unknown to Ferra.
The whole thing seemed to be breathing, or pulsing, presumably caused by the ever fluctuating stellar alignments that such mages aimed to anticipate and use. Even as Ferra watched there was a muttered curse, and with the sound of metal grinding on metal, one of the pillars shifted position and then spun ninety degrees to the side, altering where it connected to the chalk lines.
Before them was a harried looking man in a blue star patterned lab coat, stained with chalk. He wore a pair of spectacles, through which Ferra could see eyes like a pool of stars; it was a struggle not to get lost in them.
Several assistants bustled around with chalk, though one seemed to be rooting through innards of a split pumpkin. A nearby assistant tugged on the bestarred man, before hurrying off to correct a line of chalk.
The senior’s head snapped up, and he let out a sigh of relief when he saw the team. “Wonderful, you’re here! Please step inside, mind the chalk, touch nothing, Myrtle will guide you to your respective spots to stand. The other two teams just arrived.” His voice was fast and clipped, presumably still running through tens of calculations a second in his head even as he spoke.
The team followed Myrtle towards the center of the hilltop, at which point they were swarmed by a horde of assistants. Ferra found himself subjected to a flurry of measurements and questions; weight, magical leakage, magic potential, his current mental state, date of birth, favorite food.
“Favorite food?”
The assistant nodded seriously as he scribbled on the clipboard. “In four out of twelve translocations from this island, preferred foods of those being transported have formed a critical part of the balancing matrix.”
Ferra just shook his head in bewilderment as he was herded towards one of the smaller chalk rings in the central clearing, a rapid shuffling dance as the assistants argued about who should go in which circle. Twelve minutes remained when the head star mage hurried up the hill. All the various assistants converged on him, reporting summaries of their measurements for the three adventuring teams.
The man was somehow listening to four speaking at once, nodding and mumbling as he did math in his head. Such a sight was both impressive and rather concerning, seeing as Ferra damn well knew that star magic didn’t actually provide any aid with the math at all. What kind of enchantment lets one split their attention four ways like that?
His musings were cut off by a disgruntled shout from the star mage, upon which a pair of assistants hurried to swap the places of several members from two other teams they would be traveling with.
The next ten minutes were spent standing as still as possible, while assistants bustled around, changing parts of the internal chalk connections that ran between the circles they stood in and the stone pillars surrounding them.
Space warped as the time grew near, the sky above the hill twisting and rippling. The light from distant stars twisted into patterns that trembled with power above Ferra’s head.
The effect spread to his body in the seconds before alignment, his form compacting down in horrifying ways, an experience that he stayed entirely conscious of for the entire duration. Green eyes glared at him from a pillar, though only seconds remained.
The last thing he heard before squishing into a single point and vanishing in a flash of light was the star mage muttering “An hour’s not nearly enough time to verify all the calculations. Best of luck to them, may Bellis guide them!”
-----
Thankfully, before he even found time to worry about what the man had said, Ferra realized he was standing on a different hill. The pillars were marble rather than granite, and a different star mage was monitoring the situation.
“Excellent, you all arrived intact.”
The face of someone from one of the other teams went green under the scales on their face, only visible because he was currently carrying his helmet by his side. “Arriving otherwise was a possibility?”
The star mage waved a hand dismissively. “Absolutely, quite possible even. A good thing none of you were secretly a warlock, or lied about your magic potential! The strong wills adventurers often have are quite helpful for maintaining cohesion, but if someone had lied they might not have arrived at all!”
Now it was Ferra’s turn to feel green; he’d given them the number on his card, rather than his actual magic potential!
“We typically have more time to prepare, though most of you likely already have a verified file as registered emergency responders. The next alignment would have been eight hours from now, which is too long given the scale of the emergency.”
A broad woman with silver hair stepped up from behind the star mage, cutting his lecture off. “Sorry, but we don’t have time for you to ramble.”
She turned to the adventurers. “I’m Ethenna, the mine manager. I’ve got three sets of maps for you as well as three guides at the base of the hill. A reminder that compensation is guaranteed through the guild due to your status as first responders.”
The manager handed out a triplet of pamphlets to the team leaders, Grek included. “The evacuation is essentially complete, anyone left is either dead or in hiding. Security staff have kept the infernals contained to the mine itself, but the breach is growing and this is an untenable status quo.”
Ethenna nodded to the teams. “You all have a cleric. Get down there and close the breach before it becomes permanent. Don’t worry about collateral damage, just avoid collapsing the mine on yourselves. The nearest reported hand is at least a week away, even by star transport. Having to completely shut the facility down is unacceptable, let alone the ecological damage and any contamination.”
She crossed her arms. “Any questions?”
After a moment of silence, she gestured down the hill. Stepping back and out of the way, she spoke again. “Good luck down there.”
As one, the three teams began hurrying down the hill. Mirana was the first to speak, loudly enough for all to hear. “I can feel the breach from here. It’s big. No organized infernals yet, just feral. Or at least that’s what the spacing of those I can sense implies, I don’t feel any marching in ranks.”
Grek convened with the captains of the two other teams for purposes of sharing intel. One was a naiad, Ferra was fairly sure. The layer of water covering her whole body like a second skin didn’t match with previous naiads he’d met, but the blue-green skin and the gills on her neck were somewhat of a giveaway.
“Water sorcery, with hints of fae. I’ll need to stock up on water from the settlements main well before heading down.” Her voice sounded bubbly, for lack of a better term, and she nodded to Grek. “Your Avalanche is not unknown to me, and my team has no practice in fighting under the effects of law magic. We should take three separate routes down to the breach, it will reduce the chances of all three teams getting bogged down in enemies, and we won’t have to worry about cutting loose or interfering with each other as much.”
Grek nodded back. “I was about to suggest the same. Our cleric and flame sorcerer can handle swarms perfectly fine, and Mirana here is a competent fae caster. We should be able to break through on our own.”
The third captain broke in, a dragonborn wearing quality armor much like Grek’s. “I agree with splitting the teams. All of my lads are well armored, and grouping up would prevent us from using our breath attacks to their fullest extent.”
Ferra raised an eyebrow. A full team of dragonborn, and oldblood at that? That sounded more like an elite squad from the Scaheili States than it did an adventuring team. He couldn’t help but wonder if their past was as interesting as his was proving itself to be.
He stopped listening to their discussion, too busy being somewhat terrified of the situation. Their previous contract had been relatively low stakes, as such things go. If they failed, or had to pull out, only the team itself was in any real danger. Settlement of those islands might have taken longer if the team had failed, sure, but there were no bystanders in imminent danger.
Here, hundreds might die, and the weave of the world might be permanently altered. It was a sobering thought. Avalanche pulled him from such thoughts as the stoneborn floated closer.
They didn’t say anything, at first, which Ferra had come to expect from his earthen friend. He could wait. Eventually Avalanche spoke as they neared the compound, not far from the base of the central hill of the island. They spoke slowly, unhurried by the quick pace the teams were moving at. “Shortly after Mel and I joined, four years ago. We were on an island much like this one, for unrelated reasons. It was our third mission as a team with Grek, Mirana, and three others who have now gone their own way or left this world.”
They let out a rumbling chuckle. “I could hardly float, then. It was faster to tug me along with a rope.” Avalanche cleared their throat, a sound like gravel being ground up; Ferra had been fascinated to learn that it was entirely a social imitation, not something inherent to stoneborn biology. “But I digress. The point is that we were new and fresh-faced to adventuring. You can imagine, then, how poorly prepared we were for dealing with the wyvern migration that hit the island.”
Ferra nearly tripped over a root that’d snuck onto the trail as he winced. “Were there any other adventurers?”
“No, just us. There was a strike team available, and the island summoned them as soon as we realized what was happening. Strike teams are strong, sure, but very few things can easily and safely deal with a proper swarm like that. We tried our best to save as many as we could. It… wasn’t enough.”
The cleric gulped. “How many?”
“Three hundred dead, out of a population of four hundred.”
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Avalanche rumbled in agreement with Ferra’s stunned silence. “Such a massive failure, and so soon after joining. It nearly broke Mel, and though when I was younger I valued flickerlife significantly less, it still shattered my confidence.”
The stoneborn rotated fully to face Ferra. “I have no great philosophy to share that will make all the world make sense. Let the philosophers and priests debate such things. But whatever you do, whatever you think; if we fail here, don’t let it break you. We may well fail, yes, and be aware of that. But what Mel came to learn, and what Grek helped to show me, is that the importance is in trying. In not being flippant.”
They rumbled again. “You have had a responsibility thrust upon you, and it may be one that is utterly beyond your capabilities regardless of how hard you struggle. Grek will handle the details. As our commander, it is his job to do so. All you need to worry about is putting down barriers where he needs you to, and keeping the team alive. If we encounter any survivors in the mine, Grek will decide what to do. Acknowledge your fear, but do not dwell on it. It will not aid you here. At the end of the day, be grateful for every person you do help to save, rather than be scarred by the failures.”
This was the longest he’d ever heard the stoneborn speak, and it took a moment for Ferra to realize they’d finished. He scratched at his chin.
“…hmm.”
It wasn’t gracefully stated, perhaps, but Ferra felt a little better as he thought on what had been said. Avalanche, having said what they’d meant to say, was content to float in silence. They traveled as such up until the team came across the main entrance to the tunnels pervading the island. Ferra realized with a start that their guide had seamlessly slotted into the group while traveling, talking quietly with Grek.
Their captain turned to face the team, holding out the map. “This is the route we’ll be taking. Many wide open spaces, which Ferra and Mel should be able to effectively control. We’ll put Jermat,” he gestured to the guide, a dark skinned young looking lad, “in the middle of our formation. Mirana will heal anyone we find, and Jermat will lead them back to the surface. He’s trained for handling people who are hysterical or otherwise under extreme stress.
“Our goal is simple. Neutralize any infernals we encounter. Mirana will call out any targets who aren’t resistant to arcane magic to Avalanche; there is eye and ear protection for Jermat. Mel and Ferra will handle closing side tunnels and limiting how quickly they can come at us. Mirana will handle anything big. Mel will handle swarms. I’m vanguard, and will stall or deal with anything big that Mirana or Avalanche can’t immediately deal with. Any questions?”
He looked around, then nodded when he saw none. “Good. We go in. Any enhancements, potions, or otherwise, use them now.”
They shuffled past a number of security personnel staffing the entrance. There was even a man portable macro cannon mounted before the platform they’d be riding down. Avalanche eyed it longingly before reluctantly floating after the rest of the team.
They stepped onto the platform, ahead of the other two teams. With a nod from Grek to the platform operator who was understandably nervous due to being on the wrong side of the security team’s killbox, they began descending.
Idly, Ferra checked his shadow detection amulet. It pulsed once, twice. His blood froze. Sure enough, there was a flash of green eyes in the corner, visible from inside a small box that’d been left on the platform when the workers had evacuated.
How was he here?
Doing his best to maintain his composure, Ferra nudged Mel with an elbow, and gestured at the amulet. She frowned, then her eyes widened. After a nod her expression returned to neutral as she continued to go through a pre-fight stretching routine; Mel’s magic was considerably more rooted in her movements, so a sudden cramp was something she very much wanted to avoid.
Shaking away the stray thought, Ferra tried to not let his mood shift show on his face, and focused on watching for anything trying to creep onto the platform.
By all accounts the infernals hadn’t worked a way up the shaft yet, but it paid to be cautious.
“Contact.” Mirana closed her eyes, focusing on that sixth sense of hers. “Burrowers, right wall.”
She counted down with her fingers, and as her last finger curled up, Avalanche let loose with a single pulse of that ridiculous laser contraption of his. There was a twinned pair of pained screeches, but as the blinding light faded, Ferra saw they were still alive.
Reaching out with his will, he summoned a pair of thin orbs around the two creatures. Being made largely of infernal energy, both immediately crackled, sparked, and detonated upon contact, breaking the orbs. That was fine, he’d made them intentionally fragile. No point trying to contain the aftershocks.
A third, extremely thin pane of divine summoned midair served to prevent the team from being spattered in devil guts, the energy of which he was largely able to recover a quarter second later.
Mel sent Ferra a pair of thumbs up, and Grek gave a short nod. The orc spoke, after a moment of consideration. “If anything small like that gets up close to us, go ahead and deal with it, especially if Mirana is busy with something big. Mel will have less mental strain if she’s not also worrying about avoiding burning us.”
“Got it.”
Shortly after, the arcane platform ground to a halt as it settled into its bracers at the entrance to the mine proper. As the blast doors isolating the vertical shaft from the mine began to rumble open, Mirana opened her eyes as wisps of green began to wreathe her limbs.
“Numerous contacts, the room is full of them.”
Multiple bone rattling roars filled Ferra’s ears, followed shortly after by a thing, whistling wail, and a cacophony of alien, insectile chittering. At last, the room came into visibility as the doors continued to slide open.
It was carnage. Many of the crazed creatures were attacking each other. Soot and blood covered the walls, there were chunks taken out of the equipment that had been left down here. Thankfully all the tunnel supports were still intact, but any arcane devices had already broken down and consumed by the infernals.
Chunks of viscera and ash coated the floor, the latter rapidly fading away as the corpses of infernals more deeply steeped in said magic dissipated after death.
The screaming chorus of rage and pain quickly changed in tone as more of the creatures realized someone new had just entered their domain. Many began blindly charging, while others eyed the adventuring team with intelligent eyes that were nonetheless snuffed out by blind anger.
Any doubts Ferra had about the morality of imperial law regarding the immediate execution of most all infernal species was immediately put to rest now, having seen firsthand the effects of the corruption it caused. Death was the merciful option, for wretched creatures such as these.
Mel clearly agreed, as before the doors finished rumbling open entirely, she’d already danced forward, ripping a number of lazily spiraling comets of flame out towards the oncoming swarm of enemies. At the same time, Avalanche lashed out at a number of flying creatures Mirana pointed out, ones that weren’t too deeply infernal to be immune to the beam.
Ferra slapped down a series of fragile, short walls in front of the oncoming swarm. Not to hold them off forever, just to slow them down long enough for Mel’s attack to land. Barriers shattered and creatures screamed as divine and infernal energies met and immolated each other aggressively.
Grek simply braced himself, keeping an eye out for attacks from an unexpected angle. Moments later Mel’s orbs landed, impacting in the middle of the oncoming swarm.
Fire.
The expansive hall shook and debris went flying. One of the supports splintered, shifting part way. Mirana waved an arm and a gust of wind cleared the air, revealing the few stragglers of the swarm that were still standing, alongside four very large, very angry, red and yellow boar-elephant-hippopotamus-hell chimeras that hadn’t ceased their charge; they seemed entirely unaffected by the detonation.
She swung her arm again, a faint green distortion traveling through the air. When it struck, the leftmost creature screamed in pain and glowed a fierce green as a swarm of ethereal locusts devoured it, transforming the infernal to fae in a self feeding loop that rapidly consumed the entire creature. Immediately after, she directed the swarm to a second one of the creatures.
Avalanche struck out with the beam, unable to directly harm the heavily infernal creatures but nonetheless able to blind one, causing it to trip and tumble.
Mel continued to pour her energy into small streamers, striking out at the stragglers and smaller creatures. Ferra decided to help by corralling them into groups to be hit with a fireball or other explosive, rather than wasting his energy by brute forcing the larger monsters.
Grek intercepted the last chimera, stalling it long enough for Mirana’s spell to consume the last two. As the dust fell and quiet filled the hall, she began to shape the massive ball of fae energy before her into a pair of wolves.
“Del and Dop will scout for us. They can hold their own, and are eager to feed off of infernals.” Mirana rubbed the head of one affectionately and it nudged her back, almost sending her toppling. While sitting on its haunches, the wolf’s head reached above hers!
“I won’t be able to pull off another curse like that for a good while. Preventing it from turning on me is too straining.” She turned to their team captain. “Grek, are there any laws you could apply to infernal magic to deal with swarms? I fear Mel will grow tired long before we reach the bottom.”
He shrugged, and frowned. “I’ve been racking my head over what I might be able to do, but I’m not familiar enough yet with the concepts to be able to do anything safe or reliable. Nullifying manifestation might immediately kill some of them, but it depends on the species and strikes me as rather risky.”
Mirana just nodded, though her brow creased. “I see. In any case, the path down is through that door.”
The team moved, hurried but cautious, descending deeper into the mine. In many of the smaller tunnels Mel and Ferra would trade off, alternately covering the route forward with divine or flame and letting the crazed creatures hurl themselves against it.
Multiple times the wolves located survivors hiding in small alcoves or storage closets. Many times they encountered bodies, charred and partially eaten. Ferra silently rejoiced each time they found a survivor, building his resolve on each new life saved. Each time Jermat would quickly calm them down, Mirana or Ferra would give them a spot of healing, and the man would rush them to the surface.
Apparently the three adventuring teams were drawing sufficient ire such that Jermat’s trips to the surface were relatively unimpeded, though he did have a fairly powerful lightning staff just in case.
Multiple times they encountered larger rooms, circuses of pain and rage that they were clearly unwelcome in. Avalanche cycled through a number of strategies, though many were simply completely ineffective due to the nature of infernal energy’s innate ability to prey on the arcane. He found some luck with sound, stunning and disorienting the creatures, or telekinetically hurling rocks; unfortunately the latter was quite tiring.
Mel grew slow first, the infernal creatures’ fiery natures inherently meaning she had to put significantly more effort into her creations to properly damage them. The weave of her hair grew less vibrant, the liveliness that suffused her body turning sallow.
The wolves held back from swarms, though they made an excellent vanguard, and could easily down isolated larger enemies. Mirana and Ferra were still going strong, though Grek was increasingly having to jump in to slow the enemy.
Eventually, after several hours of essentially non stop comabt, as well as one particularly close call against some kind of hell wyvern, they made it to the bottom of the mines.
A massive chasm, with a great gaping wound in reality spewing out sickeningly red light into the darkness, creatures pouring out of it as they escaped hell.
The problem came, however, when Grek asked him if he could close the portal. The third team hadn’t arrived yet, and the paladin with the dragonborn team was already at risk of burning out; they’d encountered numerous poisons as the Nova Fists had, and had no fae caster to easily nullify them.
Mel and Ferra had linked arms, creating a number of mixed flaming divine walls to serve as a stable defensive location in the wide open chasm. The dragonborn were alternating breath attacks, and Mirana had launched another swarm.
Gaps had been left in the walls, and in their blind rage the infernals rushed for the chokepoints rather than hurl themselves against the barrier until it collapsed. Things were getting fairly dire, and were about to get worse.
The intelligent infernals had arrived. There were a few species capable of rational thought, though still heavily driven by instinct. They were, currently, marching through the portal in ranks, beginning to set up defenses around the breach.
Which brought him back to the problem that Ferra was desperately gnawing on. The third team hadn’t made it here yet, and what Grek had asked of him simply couldn’t be done. He simply stared helplessly at the swirling red scar in reality through which a horde of demons poured.
He couldn’t do it, not without a patron god. He was going to fail them. Mel gave him a pained grimace when she caught his eye. She knew he wasn’t a real cleric, and had no advice or solution for him. He could only watch their imminent death impotently, helplessly.
One of the dragonborn roared as he breathed out a toxic, glimmering fog that filled the air outside the dome, buying them another few moments of respite against an incoming swarm of flyers. He coughed, after. Their allies were reaching the end of their tether.
The breach pulsed once, twice, and Ferra’s attention was immediately drawn to it. The shadows seemed to thicken on the far side of the portal, the attacking hordes thinning momentarily as something larger prepared to cross. He was no warlock, but the feel of the energy writhing, twisting, and gouging a wound deeper into reality was unmistakable. A demon was coming through, a big one. The breach was being forcibly stabilized and expanded, becoming harder to close by the moment.
Very shortly, only the direct attention of a hand would be able to completely seal the portal, as it began to fully anchor in reality. The head of a massive flying snake, larger than the wyrm they’d previously encountered, began to pass through the portal, wider than a farmer’s house and so long that Ferra couldn’t see its end. Hundreds of wings ran down its length, each with a single eye embedded that caused headaches if stared at.
“Ferra!” Grek’s roar was desperate as he fought back demons breaching through the barrier. The snake shivered with hellflame, scales falling from it to transform into tiny bats made entirely of infernal energy. More of its bulk passed through the portal, which gave another ominous shiver.
Time seemed to slow. Ferra tried to take a breath, then found he couldn’t. Time wasn’t just slowed but… stopped? The bastard son blinked mentally, though his eyelids did not move.
There was a man in front of him, sitting on Grek’s metal shoulder. He had a lute in his hands, ridiculously gaudy robes, and a pile of slim books by his side.
Thinking back, Ferra couldn’t conceive of a time where this man hadn’t been sitting there, though his memory also told him that the entity had most definitely appeared when he’d blinked.
The man tossed his lute behind him in the direction of the snake, before clapping his hands slowly and obnoxiously. “Ferra, Ferra, Ferra. Or should I call you Fezzik? You seem a little hung up on that one.”
He chuckled. “Get it? Hung up? Because you’re currently frozen in time?” The abomination to all that is funny wheezed with laughter at his own joke. He stuck a hand out, shaking the air vigorously. “The name’s Vexell, by the way, God of Bards. You might have heard of me?”
The god winked, green eyes flashing. “Of course you have, I’m the best God there is!” There was a distant sound of discordant notes as the lute hit the timestuck snake demon in the face and bounced off.
He clapped his palms together, rubbing them like a seedy airship salesman anticipating a sale to a gullible customer. “So it’s been a great deal of fun watching you up till now, but it looks like things are about to fall apart here!”
The god wheezed again, wiping a tear from his eye. “Ahh, but I crack myself up. Just like the rift behind us, you know!”
The loud laughter of a crowd played from nowhere, filling the space and nearly deafening the young man. Ferra could only watch and listen, mind entirely numb at this point for a number of reasons.
“Anyways!” He clapped his hands together again, the sound like the crack of a whip that reverberated across the cavern. “So I’ve got a little proposition, a deal, a proposal, a scheme, a clever little plot here to pitch to you.”
The god of entirely preventable disasters gave a disconcertingly large grin, one so big it seemed to stretch off of his face entirely. “Here’s the deal. I’ve loved watching this wonderful mess you’ve made of this little web of lies you’ve told, and I don’t want the story to end just yet! Kiara seems to be a bit of an absentee patron at the moment for her most devoted and sincere cleric, so naturally I’ll just have to pick up the slack like the responsible little guy I am.”
That damnable grin filled the entire cavern, bearing down on Ferra’s psyche from all directions. “So here’s my offer. You become my Hand, and in return I give you the power and knowledge needed to seal this rift.”
Vexell cocked his head to the side, as if listening to a song only he could hear. “Oh wait, I lied! It’s no offer at all, or at least not one you’re in a position to refuse.”
He hopped down from Grek’s shoulder, slowly approaching Ferra as the man’s mind screamed out in horror at what the god was saying, trying desperately to move, to escape, to do anything.
Vexell reached out, clasping Ferra’s hand in his.
Their twined hands went up.
Their twined hands went down.
Time and sound and motion returned in a flash as the flamboyantly dressed man vanished from Ferra’s sight, leaving in the blink of a wicked, green eye.